István Szabó, Hungarian director and screenwriter
István Szabó (Hungarian: [ˈsɒboː ˈiʃtvaːn]; born 18 February 1938) is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and opera director.
Szabó is one of the most notable Hungarian filmmakers and one who has been best known outside the Hungarian-speaking world since the late 1960s. István Szabó's films are based on the tradition of the European auteurism that represent many aspects of the political and psychological conflicts of Central Europe's recent history often inspired by his own personal biography. He made his debut as a student in 1959, creating a short film at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest, and his first feature film was released in 1964.
He achieved his greatest international success with Mephisto (1981) for which he was awarded an Oscar prize in the best foreign language film category. Since then, most of Szabó's films have been international co-productions made in a variety of languages. His films are shot in European locations. However, he continues to make films in Hungarian, and even in his international co-productions he prefers to choose Hungary for filming locations, relying on Hungarian talents in the making. In 2006, Szabó stirred controversy when a weekly Hungarian magazine called Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature in English) published an article about that he had been an informant to the communist regime's secret service.